2018 Symposium Speaker

Noelle Johansen

About Noelle

Noelle is currently a Boise State student studying English Literature and Creative Writing. She graduated one year early from Blackfoot High School as Valedictorian. As a lover of reading and writing, Noelle's identity, ideas, and viewpoints are connected to the pieces that she has read and what she has learned from those pieces.

Noelle is a survivor of sexual assault, and as such, feels strongly about the importance of consent and bodily autonomy.

She spends her free time hanging out with her dog, making hand-embroidery pieces, and cooking. Noelle's goal for the future is to make a difference in the lives of others by establishing a mandatory consent training program for students at Boise State.

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Noelle's Project

The epidemic of sexual assault and sexual violence in the United States is now becoming a topic more freely discussed in the media, classrooms, and homes, but that doesn’t mean that the problem is solved. In an anonymous survey, I found that 1 in every 7 Boise State students has been sexually assaulted during their time at Boise State, and 1 in every 3 has been sexually assaulted at some point in their lives. However, despite this epidemic, research has been done that shows that sexual assault is easily preventable through intensive consent training.In Nairobi, Kenya, researchers from Stanford conducted a study with high school students. Students who participated in an intensive consent training program for a total of 12 hours over a six-week period had sexual assault rates drop by 51%. Bystanders in this group who stopped sexual assault jumped from 26% to 74%, and 56% of girls in this group stopped a rape in the year following the program. From this study, we can see that intensive consent training can help prevent sexual violence.​Due to this research and the prevalence of sexual assault within the Boise State community, I aim to create a workshop that will be taught by myself and volunteers to help educate students about consent in an empowering and meaningful way. This course will be taught in as many classrooms as possible next fall, with the goal of creating a mandatory consent training program in the future.